Carbon Fiber: The Performance World's Go-Fast Gold

What Is Carbon Fiber and Why Is It Today’s Hottest Performance Automotive Material?

- Noah Thanos

Formula 1 and American muscle are two automotive genres that don’t usually meet. F1 cars are high revving, mid-engine toothpicks on wheels, while muscle cars are big V8 coupes with the aerodynamic qualities of a brick. But hey, who cares when you have torque? Despite their lack of similarities, SpeedKore Performance Group decided that Detroit could learn a thing or two from Monaco.

Since 2015, SpeedKore has been sending icons of American muscle to finishing school, outfitting their various modern muscle cars with high-performance powertrains, custom-designed frames, and, most notably, famous F1 lightweight technology in the form of carbon fiber. Their most recent creation, a 1970 Dodge Charger dubbed Hellraiser, is built entirely of the stuff. It dropped 600 pounds from its original curb weight while gaining about 600 horsepower by way of a 426 Hellephant V8 from Mopar.

We were curious about SpeedKore’s carbon-fiber process, so we dropped in at the company’s Grafton, Wisconsin, workshop to learn more about this go fast gold.

A Brief History of Carbon Fiber

Carbon fiber made its automotive debut on the 1981 McLaren MP4/1 Formula 1 car. Not long after, it trickled down into the highest tier of on-road performance with supercars like the Jaguar XJR-15 and McLaren F1. The added stiffness and reduced weight of carbon made it the perfect material for motorsports applications.

Today, carbon fiber is more widespread than ever, but it’s still primarily reserved for high-horsepower, high-dollar exotics. A few mainstream cars use carbon components as structural pieces, but the lion’s share of OEM carbon fiber is nothing more than automotive jewelry with negligible performance benefits.